Somewhere in 2001, I bought a computer magazine which came with a Linux CD. I had heard of Linux before, but while we did have broadband back then and was technically capable of downloading a Linux distribution, this method was far easier. This was my first foray into Linux - it was Mandrake. Now, though, it seems the curtain has really dropped for the French Linux company.

We don't have enough distinct distros. We have hundreds of Ubuntus with different wallpapers. Ubuntu itself is 99% dependant on Debian. There are different distros but they all specialize in a niche. There are few general purpose desktop distros.
"Survival of the fittest" means no desktop GNU/Linux, only Windows. MacOS should have died 13 years ago. Windows on the Desktop and GNU on the server. No BSD, no Solaris.
But anyway you don't care as long as it's not the distro you use. It's just Mandriva after all, isn't it?

We don't have enough distinct distros. We have hundreds of Ubuntus with different wallpapers. Ubuntu itself is 99% dependant on Debian. There are different distros but they all specialize in a niche.

Nonsense. Right off the top of my head I can divide the desktop distros into 3 major families with different philosophies: Debian family, Redhat Family, SUSE family. Or divide them another way: Fast & Loose (Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSuse...), and Conservative (RHEL/CentOS/SL/SLED).

Granted, there is a bit of a glut in the fast & loose, for newbies subcategory. And it would probably be better if that were pared down a bit.

MacOS should have died 13 years ago.

Apple has a solid product, which would qualify for the Conservative category, were it a Linux distro. Certainly, it's been of sufficient quality to blow the doors off Linux regarding desktop market share, even though it is hampered with the same market disadvantages, re: Windows as Linux bears, but comes at a premium price compared to the Linux giveaway.

But anyway you don't care as long as it's not the distro you use. It's just Mandriva after all, isn't it?

I use several distros personally and professionally. Don't get so emotionally involved with Mandriva. It's one of (too) many in the same class. And it appears that its time has come. Since you're already familiar with Linux, I'd suggest graduating to one of the enterprise desktop clones. Having the very latest packages used to be a benefit. But the Linux desktop has matured to the point that, today, it's more of a damned nuisance.

Nonsense. Right off the top of my head I can divide the desktop distros into 3 major families with different philosophies: Debian family, Redhat Family, SUSE family. Or divide them another way: Fast & Loose (Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva, OpenSuse...), and Conservative (RHEL/CentOS/SL/SLED).

Mandriva is the only one on your list that is primarily focused on the desktop.

Apple has a solid product, which would qualify for the Conservative category, were it a Linux distro. Certainly, it's been of sufficient quality to blow the doors off Linux regarding desktop market share, even though it is hampered with the same market disadvantages, re: Windows as Linux bears, but comes at a premium price compared to the Linux giveaway.

You didn't get the point and you are out of context. Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy 13 years ago and was saved by Microsoft in-extremis. With that in mind, try to understand the point.

I use several distros personally and professionally. Don't get so emotionally involved with Mandriva. It's one of (too) many in the same class. And it appears that its time has come. Since you're already familiar with Linux, I'd suggest graduating to one of the enterprise desktop clones. Having the very latest packages used to be a benefit. But the Linux desktop has matured to the point that, today, it's more of a damned nuisance.

Don't get emotional about MacOS X. You don't get emotional because you don't use the distro. You are not qualified to give me advise on what I should use. I use Red Hat and Debian on my servers at work. I use Gentoo, Slackware and Mandriva at home. I use gentoo because I can have a full system compiled with -ggdb -O1 so I can get meaningful backtraces for software development. I have multi boot and VirtualBox. I know perfectly what the options are. I just prefer Mandriva for my desktop. I know you don't care and that it wouldn't change anything for you if it died but it would change something for me. So please, if you don't care then just don't comment.

"Survival of the fittest" means no desktop GNU/Linux, only Windows. MacOS should have died 13 years ago. Windows on the Desktop and GNU on the server. No BSD, no Solaris.

Well if you yourself say that Windows is better suited for the desktop than Linux... yeah, I'd say it deserves to continue dominating, in such case (while we watch over and pair down any abuses of that ~monopoly; in itself it isn't a bad thing, only its abuses are)

Though it seems you naively interpret "survival of the fittest" (or even what "fittest" means) as not far from "survival of the one" ...look around you sometimes, that's not nearly what evolutionary processes unfold - starting from possibly / essentially one organism, or at least a fairly similar group of very basic ones.
With most noticeable differentiations, diversity, explosion of new possibilities happening during the last half a billion years, when pressures increased drastically (when other life became the biggest one), when organisms started to die as a manner of "habit" (earlier, before sexual reproduction, they didn't really ever die - essentially at most just destroyed)